It Chapter Two (2019) Review!!!

Synopsis – Twenty-seven years after their first encounter with the terrifying Pennywise, the Losers Club have grown up and moved away, until a devastating phone call brings them back.

My Take – Growing up as teenager surrounded by DC and Marvel comics along with a tinge of Harry Potter and other fantasy novels, IT was my first foray into proper horror territory, which I was inspired to read after not being as age appropriately enticed by author R.L. Stine‘s Goosebumps works (a lie I told myself).

As one would have expected, the book tapped into my most deep-seated fears, ones I wasn’t aware I possessed on some long-submerged level, and swung hard for the fence for weeks to come. As a reader, while the book scared the crap out of me, it also turned me towards author Stephen King and his other acclaimed set of works, making me a longtime fan, who went through a recent strings of nightmares after reading King‘s Pet Sematary.

The biggest catch of a King novel is how he plumbs the psychological depths of the best and worst of human nature, and IT continues to be one of his best.

While big screen adaptions of King‘s novels, with the exception of a few, have often being lambasted for missing out on that essence in favor cheap scares, director Andy Muschietti‘s 2017 film, the first half of the 1,138 pages book, succeeded in bringing what others failed at, hereby resulting in a film which went on to become both a critical and commercial success.

Now two years later, we are back in this arresting world of King‘s imagination in the form of a follow up to the highest-grossing horror film of all time. With an A list cast attached, the film just has a lot to live up to. Thankfully, it does.

In terms of scale, ambition and scope, the film just goes all out, with increasingly gross and spectacular set pieces, arcs, trials and torments for each of its main characters and plenty of flashbacks featuring the young cast. It’s a pacey, if episodic, romp that never drags despite its epic run time and feels true to the spirit of the book, while not sticking religiously to the letter of the text.

Does it all work? Well no, but yet it is an impressive cinematic horror event nonetheless and makes as a great companion to the first film by bringing the story of the Losers Club full-circle. And of course, Pennywise will still make you have a crippling fear of clowns.

Set 27 years after the events of the first film, the story follows the Losers Club, who after seemingly defeated the shape-shifting monster Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård), moved on with their lives. Bill Denbrough (James McAvoy) is now a successful novelist, married to a famous actress.

Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain) is a successful fashion designer married to an abusive husband. Wiseguy Richie Tozer (Bill Hader) is a top-tier stand-up comedian with a secret he can’t admit to himself, or anyone else.

Ben Hanscom (Jay Ryan) is no longer the fat kid, and has transformed into a slim, well-muscled successful architect. Eddie Kaspbrak (James Ransone) is a risk analyst and still a neurotic hypochondriac, who has replaced his overbearing, emotionally abusive mother with an overbearing, emotionally abusive wife and Stanley Uris (Andy Bean) has become a mild-mannered accountant.

While everyone left Derry, Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) stayed back, keeping a check on mysterious deaths and cases throughout history. And it is only when a horrific homophobic attack occurs that Mike realizes the ancient evil has resurfaced and takes it upon himself to track down each member and call them home, so they can fulfill the blood pact they made when they were kids, and put a stop to this monster once and for all.

To do so, they must face up to the horrors of their past and battle it out against everything this evil entity throws at them.

Without a doubt, this sequel is once again handsomely directed by Andy Muschietti, whose flair for balancing emotional cords with horror moments, like we saw in his 2013 film, Mama, remains intact. Much like its predecessor, the film relies on scaring the audience through building up a creepy atmosphere of uncertainty and inner torment within the main characters, rather than with typical jump scares.

This isn’t your average fast-food horror like the ‘The Conjuring’ universe films. This is as much a drama in a lot of ways as it is a horror. The first half of the film especially, as a long time is taken reintroducing us to the characters, showing us where they are with their lives now and building up their resumes again. The heart of IT has been the theme of coming-of-age and Pennywise is the literal representation of children’s worst fears, and the dynamics within the Losers Club showcase explorations of new thoughts and feelings.

Between the scares, the film floats some real insight into how much childhood sets a course for the rest of a person’s life, and the way humans create defense mechanisms to wall off parts of their past that are too painful to confront. King‘s book may be a beast, but director Muschietti does his best to honor its scope, which isn’t about building the biggest scare machine of his career so much as tangling its characters in a web of poverty, abuse, and domestic terror that they struggle to escape.

Fans of King’s book would be happy to see the slavish dedication to reproducing the source material with both intelligence and honor, even if one of the characters is a direct sendoff to Stephen King himself.

The themes like necessity of facing one’s fears, and holding on to the people who love you, may be simple but they’re effectively executed without pandering too much to the ’80s pop culture facsimile that we’re seeing in cinema and TV lately.

Then in the second half, the film kicks into hyper-drive with non-stop, in your face horror, and it is a sight to behold. This one is heavy on the CGI and ramps up the spectacle of the first film, leaning hard into body horror and jump scare territory. It’s packed with effectively icky and frequently unsettling set pieces, as each Loser must confront a horror from the past in order to retrieve an artifact that will allow them to defeat the evil, shape-shifting Pennywise.

As a reader I am glad they got rid of the subplots involving Beverley’s abusive husband and Bill’s wife following their spouses to Derry and getting pulled into Pennywise’s shenanigans. It would have been an unnecessary complication to an already complicated film.

In order to add to the fun, here, writer Gary Dauberman and director Muschietti add some winks about how Bill is great author but ends up messing the endings. Anyone who is familiar with Stephen King‘s work knows that the book or original mini-series ending was not well liked.

Unfortunately the same happens here. Here, the film tries to take a slightly different tack, which is no less unsatisfying and has logical problems to boot. Another factor which didn’t work was the subplot involving Bill trying to save a young boy from Pennywise in a fun house. Also I remember the adult Henry Bowers (Teach Grant) playing an important part leading up the finale. Here, his whole sequence of an escaped mental patient being chauffeured the rotting corpse of his former friend felt just campy, in a serious film.

The grown-up Loser’s Club cast in this film each do a fantastic job mirroring their child counterparts. All of them bring their own uniqueness to their characters, with Bill Hader standing out the most as the grown up Richie, who injects some much needed comic relief into some of the film’s more dramatic moments. James McAvoy gives a performance that demonstrated the growth that his character had gone through, whilst being able to show his regression to childhood fear when it was appropriate.

Jessica Chastain, Jay Ryan, Isaiah Mustafa, James Ransone and Andy Bean jump neck deep into adding the eccentricities of their younger counterparts and infusing the same into their character traits.

Their younger counterparts, Sophia Lillis, Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Wyatt Oleff, continue to be excellent. Xavier Dolan and Taylor Frey are effect in their opening scene act, while Jess Wiexler, Will Beinbrink, Nicholas Hamilton and Teach Grant don’t have much to do here.

However, once again it is Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise, the highlight of the film, somehow managing to be even more gruesome and unsettling than last time. Even when he was put in some extremely surreal scenes, he still brought the goofy clown into disturbing new territories. On the whole, ‘It Chapter Two’ is a daring and entertaining conclusion to a horror saga that is uplifted by its effective themes, powerful performances, and nightmare-inducing scares.